Chapter 2: Fell Tunnels

Makasi wipes the ichor from her halberd blade and moves to stand below the treed Halfling. She extends the pole arm, blade down, so the man can shimmy down, careful to keep her glaived hands between the Halfling and the blade. "Yes, my friend, let's keep our voices down. Tell us what you were doing when those creatures found you. We need to be make sure the way is safe."

The halfling carefully makes his way down the pole, slipping at the end but being so close to the ground he wasn't hurt. "We're farmers who live about a day north of here. We are on our way to Axis to share our produce and meats, but the Ankheg must have gotten a whiff. Five of them attacked, three going for our cart and two for our mules. Can't imagine ol' Brinda and Stephanie made it out of there. Well, we hightailed it. Seems two of'em were still hungry and followed us underground. We had been running about 10 minutes, i'd wager. Didn't know I had it in me.

The Female whips the dust off her clothes and walks up. "I told you I had a bad feeling when I left, but noooo! You couldn't pass up the money we'd ah gotten if we made it to Axis with all that extra harvest. Well anyways," She turns from the male to all of you. "Mind if we ask you to accompany us to our house? If you're headed to First Triumph it'll be on the way. You can say the night if you'd like. We can't afford much payment."

"If you can serve us anything but dry trail rations I'm likely to take you up on that offer," Edgar says with a sigh. "But let's make it quick and quietly if there's three more of those beasts out there."

Hrafe picked up a medium sized stone selecting it for roundness and density over ease of grip. He considered ankhegs as insects likely had marked him and Ylliane with attack pheromones and as he mulled it over decided to cast the stone downhill, laterally to their trek. A false trail for the dangerous predators to follow. He hurled it with the utmost of his considerable strength to confuse the creatures.

Ylliane nods. "That sounds like a fine plan. But let's be off. The more distance we put between ourselves and this place, the less likely we are to be attacked again."

You all travel the rest of the day and make camp. The night is uneventful, and you continue on the road half a day until you the halflings tell you to vere off the road. You quickly realize there is a side road that leads to a farm about half an hour down.

"Welcome to our humble abode..." The halfing male seems like he would normally be happy, but dissapointment is written all over his face.

You are brought inside and see an elderly halfing woman holding a baby. "Back so soon? By now you should only just be arriving in Axis. What happened?"

The female puts her hands on her hips. "Remember that bad feeling I had? Well, we were ambushed by Ankheg. These good people behind us killed the two that wanted to eat us. Three others got all are stuff."

The elderly halfling woman puts the child down in a safe place and starts walking to the kitchen. "Well, lets get these nice people a meal." The remainder of the evening is filled with conversation around the dinner table. The meal is hearty, with lots of meat and potatoes, as well as some carrots.

Just as everyone is getting ready to go to sleep, the male halfling comes up to the group. "We have some guest beds, but not enough for four people. I don't have much, but would you be willing to sleep out in the barn? It would be nice not just for space but in case those other three ankheg find our home and try to kill off our livestock that we didn't bring with us. If they do appear and you protect the cows and horses, I'll figure out some kind of payment. What do you say? Otherwise, we have two beds and the other two can sleep down here in the living room."

Makasi nods to the halfling. "Those of my group who were injured should probably take the beds. I'm happy to sleep in the barn."

Their names are Kasfer and Yofira Brightmouse and the older lady is Anzira Mildeyes.

"Ah. What a great meal," Edgar notes as they are served. "Just some rat meat and some fungus to make it like the dwarven food I grew up on."

Ylliane somehow just... disappears in the middle of all of this.

Hrafe performs his rituals and ablutions before sleeping outside he had avoided the halflings when possible and kept himself out of sight as to not disturb the peaceful and tranquil home. Rising with the sun he chanted in his deep guttural tones in that foreign language of the distant north.

The Prayer

With Hrafe and Ylliane apparently closing outdoor beds, Makasi sighs. "I suppose I'll take one of those guest beds after all, friends. If one of those things attacks, I'd prefer your family be protected—not just the cows."

Being a sniper wasn't all about being in the back lines of a conflict. Part of being a sniper for the Empire meant being embedded in place, sometimes for a week or more, waiting for a target to appear. That's why when the orcs marched on Greywall, they'd lost three generals, not from the actual fighting, but because someone had been covered with mud and straw and lying in a creek bed for the five days it took their army to pass her just so she could identify the best targets. She'd had to eat then too, although up north it was more peccary and less pheasant. Still, it was easy once you knew to look for the shape of the bird and not the color. The bad part with pheasant was that sometimes you'd scare them, sometimes something else would scare them, and sometimes they'd scare themselves, so you could wait hours for a good shot and then the breeze would blow and they'd notice the trees had leaves and be gone before you could take it.

Fortunately, it wasn't one of those nights.

As the night goes on, Makasi and Edgar elect to use the guest rooms, as it seems Hrafe desires to stay outside and Ylliane does too. The night goes off without any incident. No sound of animals in distress or creatures burrowing in the soul.

The next morning, Anzira makes a nice breakfast for everyone and Kasfer walks you all to the edge of the property.

Thank you again for saving me and my wife. I would have hated for my mother in law to raise our daughter in our stead. I do have one request, but I don't expect anything really. On our way back, we did see our cart. Obviously the animals had been dragged away by the Ankheg, but we had some other trade goods that Ankheg had no need of, mainly gold and some wool from our sheep and stuff like that. It was missing. I have a feeling some group noticed the cart and looted it. For them to see the cart so soon after the incident, they had to happen to be in the right place at the right time or they were lying in wait. Do you think you could see if maybe you could find the thieves and get our stuff back? I can't promise much of a payment, but I get you a letter of recommendation to some people I know in Fort Triumph who might give you a discount. Of course anything that you find that I don't claim as ours would be yours, so maybe you can get some gold from the thieves. What do you say? I know you have to be somewhere, but it should only be an extra day.

"KIlling bandits is both a service to the Empire and a favor to the gene pool we should do it."

Edgar nods. "Since you are offering a payment and I am an professional," he says.

You all travel about 4 hours back the way towards Axis, your original starting point, and find the cart you had passed heading to the halflings' estate. As you remember from passing it, there is nothing but a damaged cart to be found. The wheel has been busted, likely by an Ankheg lifting the cart and dropping it. Anything that was in the cart has been removed, both livestock and merchandise alike.

Hrafe starts to walk a circle around the perimeter of the scene, using his skills as a warrior poet. Knowing that a competent warrior wins first and then wages battle, he looked for advantageous positions, particularly along the rocks skirting the perimeter - a place where the ankhegs couldn't hear them, and couldn't burrow into. Then he examined the trees.

Edgar uses his training as an assassin. In the employ of the Crusader he often had to track down his prey. Now he tries to disregard their own tracks from yesterday, and focus on any new tracks.